


Sedder's Exile

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Duelling, Elves, Gen, Original Universe, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-01-01
Updated: 1998-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The half-elven wizard Sedder is confronted and challenged to a duel by Hawthorne Chelseer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sedder's Exile

"How much did he pay you, Sedder?"

 _Uh oh_ , thought Sedder, stopping dead in his tracks. "Who?" he feigned ignorance.

Hawthorne put her sword to his throat. "The Dark Knight, half-elf. I know you are the one responsible for this outrage."

Hawthorne was right, but Sedder wanted to keep his head this morning, so he continued his charade. "I don't know what you're talking about, Hawthorne."

She pressed her magic sword closer to his neck, forcing Sedder to stand on his toes just to avoid the sharp edge.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about, Sedder. The Dark Knight now has interdimensional travel, too. Because we Elkandu have all the books, somebody had to tell him about it and give him the spells to build his own teleportation Nexus."

Sedder shuddered involuntarily. "Why do you jump to the conclusion that it was me?" He needed to convince her that he was not the one who did it, because he was indeed the culprit.

"You worked for the Dark Knight once. You change sides whenever it's convenient. I hate you, Sedder."

The way she spoke his name, it sounded like an insult.

"Hawthorne, I didn't do it, Swamp did it! Now will you let me go? I have to speak with Keolah."

"I should execute you here and now," Hawthorne snarled. "I should tell the other Elkandu that whenever they run across you they should kill you. We could put you through an eternity of suffering." She sheathed her sword. "But I won't. Get out of my sight before I change my mind."

Sedder, unable to believe his good fortune, scrambled into the cave of Torn Elkandu and ran to the other side of the mountain. It wasn't Keolah he was going to talk with, but the Dark Knight. First, though, he stopped by the storeroom. All Elkandu were allowed free access to the storeroom, which contained hundreds of items from every world known to be in existance. Sedder, however, was interested in a very specific item.

He had to use a locator spell to find it, but at last he dug it out from beneath piles of stuff and smuggled it safely out to the Dark Knight.

"Did you get it?" demanded the gruff voice of the cowled wizard.

"Right here," Sedder told him, pulling the object out of his Elkandu robes. "I had to dodge Hawthorne to get it. She was intent on spontaneous decapitation, but I told her Swamp did it and she let me go."

"I don't like Swamp," the Dark Knight commented, inspecting the item closely. "But Hawthorne I hate. She crossed me too many times to let me forgive her."

Sedder nodded. "I don't think it would be wise for me to go back there just yet."

Let's go down to Lezaria. I think better on that world."

The rogue Elkandu nodded and followed the Dark Knight to the edge of the world of Torn Elkandu, which led directly into Lezaria. Torn Elkandu was really a world within a world, in a sense, since its edges were portals into Lezaria.

The Dark Knight turned to Sedder. "Join me, Sedder. Become the first of my Elkandu followers. You have served the Darkness before; will you serve it again?"

Sedder hesitated, uncertain of whether he should make a firm commitment to the powers of evil. "I'll think about it," he finally told him.

"Silver said exactly the same thing."

Sedder took half a step back, momentarily feeling lightheaded. Silver had always been the incarnation of pure goodness, and to learn that not even Silver could decline the sweet offers of the Darkness was terrifying. What if, indeed, Silver had turned to Darkness? What would the worlds of the Elkandu be like then? No, Sedder was the Shadow. He was supposed to be evil, though he had never fit this stereotype completely. He never fit anything completely. Still musing over the conflicting forces within him, he bid the Knight good night and returned to Torn Elkandu.

He climbed up the mountain to the cave and located Keolah. "Keolah, something's been going on."

"What's wrong, Sedder? You look troubled." Sedder didn't respond. "What's bothering you?"

"I--I'd rather not talk about it," he told her quickly. "I need to tell you, the Dark Knight has the Daggerstone."

"The Daggerstone!" Keolah leapt to her feet. "But that's the most powerful magical object from the world of Tenlands! How did he get it?"

"I gave it to him." Sedder was not afraid about coming clean with Keolah, since she was not the kind of person who chopped off somebody's head spontaneously before learning all the facts.

Keolah glared at him. "You gave it to him. Sedder, why?"

"Because I do not agree with your Elkandu and everything they represent. I do not follow your high philosophies, Keolah. I will follow you no longer. I've decided to join the Dark Knight."

"You also gave him the spells for interdimensional travel, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," Sedder affirmed quietly. Tears were stinging his eyes, but he ignored them.

"I have no choice but to exile you," Keolah told him. "I can understand why you lied to Hawthorne."

Sedder nodded ruefully. "Do you know where Silver is? I need to speak with him before I leave."

"You can't speak with Silver," she informed him. "He's on Veeden right now and can't be reached."

That disappointed him greatly. Being forced into exile without consulting his closest friend would make the following years very difficult, he thought. "You'll let me go? After what I've done?"

"Go your own way, Sedder. You have chosen this path; now you must see it through. I could try to stop you, but I choose not to."

Hawthorne, however, had different ideas. She barged into the room at that moment and shouted at him, "Sedder, Shadow of the Elkandu, I hereby challenge you to a duel of magic. Should I win, you will be sentenced to death. Should you win, you will be exiled, free to go, and free from any other consequences among the Elkandu for your numerous past crimes."

"You can't decline," Keolah reminded him.

"I know," Sedder replied. "As is traditional among the Elkandu, I as the challenged decide the time and place." He smiled inwardly, knowing a way to get out of dueling with Hawthorne until he had grown stronger. He pulled Keolah's mirror out of a drawer and used his magic to make the dimension thread visible there. "This is what the place I've chosen looks like," he told Hawthorne. The mirror showed a green field, with some trees and rocks nearby, but no visible animals or people. "The world is Veeden, the time is three days from now."

"What!" Hawthorne cried, outraged.

"You challenged him. He has that prerogative," Keolah told her calmly, smiling slightly at Sedder's ingenuity. "You never said it had to take place in Torn Elkandu, nor today."

"I'll get you for this," Hawthorne snarled. "Warm up the Nexus. I'm going right now. I can't stand waiting."

She strode angrily out of the chamber.

"So, what, she's just going to hurry up and wait?" Sedder said incredulously.

Keolah couldn't help but laugh aloud. "You have an advantage over her, Sedder. Use it well!"

"I will, Keolah. They say the one who has the most to lose has an advantage over the other, so that makes me two up on Hawthorne. May your magic never falter, Keolah," he bid her, leaving.

"And may yours find its favor, Sedder," Keolah spoke the age-old reply.

Sedder went down to Lezaria and found the Dark Knight Sardill in his castle, in the region called Flyland.

"Ah, Sedder, you've returned."

Sedder sat down backwards on a chair beside the Knight, resting his arms and chin on the chairback. "Sir, Hawthorne has challenged me to a duel."

"You're in trouble."

"Indeed," sighed the half-elf. "She means to kill me. Even if I win, I'll never be able to return to Torn Elkandu without her trying to kill me again."

Both of them knew Hawthorne well enough to know that merely losing would not keep her from challenging Sedder again if he invaded her domain. "When and where did you choose to fight her?" asked Sardill.

"That's the best part," Sedder gave a quick bark of laughter. "Veeden, three days from now. But she was feeling impatient and already left."

"I'm impressed. How did you ever get her to agree with that?"

"She really wants to kill me. I guess she assumed that she could beat me any day of the week. What I need now, however, is a more sure way of surviving this. I could probably manage to stay alive if I went right now, but--" He suddenly thought of something. The storeroom of Torn Elkandu contained plenty of good items. Surely there would be something in there that would help him. "I'm going back to Torn Elkandu to sift through the storeroom. I'll return here before I leave."

The Knight nodded and wished him good luck.

* * *

Sedder hated the storeroom. It was impossible to find anything useful in there unless one knew precisely what one was looking for. After spending nearly three full days sorting through mostly trivial and useless items, Sedder was just about ready to give up. Wands of Turn Pink would not really help against Hawthorne. Then, sitting down to rest a moment, he spotted an item that just might be what he was looking for. Snatching it up, his exitement grew as he realized that it was exactly what he was looking for.

"Shadow ring," he breathed. He didn't know which world it was from, but he sensed that it was very powerful. If he augmented it with his own magic, he would be able to do some incredible things with this little ring.

Grasping the shadow ring so tightly that it cut the palm of his hand, Sedder fled from the cavern and returned to Lezaria.

"Your Darkness," Sedder called to Sardill. "I have found it!" The Dark Knight entered and examined at the shadow ring.

"I have never seen its like before."

"Will you help me increase its power?" Sedder asked eagerly.

Sardill nodded curtly, rubbing his thumb on the obsidian stone of the ring. He handed it to Sedder, speaking in a low voice. "Concentrate on the stone. It is the focal point of the ring. You are the Shadow, and this is your ring. Channel your Elkandu energy into the stone."

He kept talking, guiding Sedder, but Sedder no longer was listening. "My power becomes your power," he whispered to the ring. "I am the Shadow and you are my ring. You are the power of Darkness, the magic of the night. Take my mana as your own. Your illusions become solid, your transluscency invisible, your blindness stinging, your shadows deeper, your power stronger."

The shadow ring was now glowing in a dark, peculiar way. Sedder felt a portion of his own magic syphoned into the little ring, then he recovered from the momentary weakness. Being an Elkandu, even a little of his power was a great deal. Were he a mortal wizard, the attempt would have either killed him outright or left him scarred for life.

Taking the ring in his hand, the Dark Knight appraised Sedder's work. "You have done well, Sedder. Are you ready to face Hawthorne now?"

The half-elf nodded ruefully, taking the shadow ring from his master and slipping it onto his finger. He could feel the ring's energy increasing his own power threefold, even as his own had increased the ring's. "I am ready, Your Darkness. I will take the Nexus in Torn Elkandu to reach the site."

"May your magic never falter, Sedder," bid the Dark Knight.

"And may yours find its favor," replied Sedder.

Vakis, Keolah's husband, was working the evening shift at the Nexus when Sedder arrived. "I've got the teleporter set for you, Sedder," he told him.

"Thank you, Vakis," the other responded quietly, deep in his own meditation.

The black man scowled, saying, "You ought to relax, Sedder. You seem overly tense. Hawthorne's out to kill you, and she may very well succeed if you don't relax."

Sedder blinked, realizing that he had been tense. He took some deep breaths and commanded his muscles to relax. His Elkandu-trained body responded obediantly. "Thanks, Vakis, my friend. I need all the help I can get."

"Are you ready now?" asked the dark-skinned Elkandu."I'm ready."

"Step into the center of the Nexus and focus your mind on your destination. Clear your mind of anything else. Grasp the thread of your destination."

Sedder did so, and the teleport mists surrounded him. As he reached the world of Veeden, they cleared, leaving him on a grassy plain facing Hawthorne, her magic sword already drawn. How long had she been standing there waiting for him like that? Crazy woman.

"So you are here, Sedder the Shadow."

"So you are here, Hawthorne the Swordwoman."

"Enough with the preliminaries. _En garde!_ "

Hawthorne did not attack with her sword, but instead with a fireball. She did not often use her sword for physical attack; rather, she used it as a channel through which her magic passed and a well from which her mana was drawn.

Sedder saw it coming and put up a magic shield well before it reached him. Dissipating, the fireball also knocked out his shield, leaving Sedder momentarily defenseless. Then the shadow ring reminded him of its presence. With a little smile, Sedder conjured the illusion of a shadow warrior, something which he could have summoned in reality but chose not to use so much mana.

Hawthorne immediately snapped up the bait and mistook the illusion for reality. She flung a lightning bolt at the advancing simulacrum, only to have it pass through the creature unhindered. Seeing the warrior as false, she thereby ignored it completely. That was her greatest mistake.

The shadow warrior proven to be an illusion, Sedder used his ring's magic to make him solid. While she had been busy with the warrior, though, he had set up another forcefield, this one stronger and less hastily formed than the last. Hawthorne, he saw, had now done the same as she was preparing for her next offensive.

The earth beneath Sedder's feet shifted. Losing his balance, he landed face-first in a pool of bubbling lava. He managed to cast a fire-resistance spell in time to save his life, but the entire right side of his face was charred. Regaining his concentration, Sedder caused the ground behind Hawthorne to split, placing her on the brink of a great chasm. His shadow warrior continued to advance, slowly but inexorably.

Hawthorne's sword flashed briefly, causing a great pulse of energy to slap through his shields and throw him rolling across the broken ground. The shadow warrior was unaffected. Sedder then caused an image of a hawk to dive at his opponant's face. Hawthorne tried to knock the bird from the sky, but it was unharmed being only an illusion. Then Sedder made the hawk solid and commanded it to attack the woman again.

At the last moment, Hawthorne realized that indeed the bird was solid this time and spun out of the way, receiving only a scrape on the shoulder before she destroyed the illusion. Blood streaming down her arm, she conjured a magic net to entangle Sedder.

He tried to break through the net, but he found that he could not, so he used it to augment his own shields instead. The shadow warrior was almost ready to strike. Sedder expanded his chasm to surround Hawthorne on three sides, the fourth being used by his warrior.

Annoyed, the woman cast a Shrinking Sphere on him. He could not keep the sphere from encompassing him, but he did manage to keep it from shrinking. Then the shadow warrior struck.

Hawthorne, believing it to be only an illusion, had forgotten all about the warrior, and had chosen not to look into the chasm surrounding her, being afraid of heights; but as the solid illusion struck her with its heavy mace, she fell tumbling into the chasm below. Her wavering concentraion caused the sphere to crumble, but she got off one last spell as she was falling. She caused a great sandstorm to whirl around Sedder, in one last attempt to destroy him.

Sedder, however, had one last trick the ring made possible: he became as an illusion, visible yet invincible. Being unsolid now, he could not physically do anything, nor cast any spell, but neither could he be harmed by anything.

He jogged toward the chasm and climbed down, seeking out where Hawthorne had fallen to. Finally he found her, engrossed in a healing spell. Sedder had to become solid again to talk to her.

"Do you yield?" shouted Sedder over the howling wind.

Hawthorne stubbornly shook her head. He struck her with a lightning bolt.

"Do you yield?" repeated Sedder.

She still refused to yield to him. He caused her eyes to become blind and stinging.

"Do you yield?" cried Sedder. "You are beaten, Hawthorne. You cannot defend yourself. Yield!"

She spat. "Go to the Abyss!"

"We've turned this world into the Abyss," he told her sadly. "Now yield. I assure you, you'll get another chance to kill me, but not today. It's over, Hawthorne."

"I--yield," snarled Hawthorne reluctantly, "half-elf."


End file.
